Woman who survived Joplin tornado dies with rare fungus

Woman is among at least three who died with rare infection.

Jun. 17, 2011

Leola Hardin

Written by

News-Leader

Thomas Hardin pets his dog Safaan, a Maltese, on Thursday. Safaan was at home with Hardin's mother when the tornado hit May 22. / Nathan Papes / News-Leader

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The last time Kathy Robbins saw her mother alive, she was in good spirits despite severe injuries from the Joplin tornado.

"We left thinking she was going to be OK," said Robbins, who lives in Carthage, Ind. "She couldn't talk, but we'd crack jokes with her and she'd laugh. She was my mom, handling it all with grace."

Robbins is back in Joplin today for the funeral of her mother, Leola Hardin, 76, who died June 8 after contracting a deadly fungal infection that has sickened at least seven other people. Memorial services are scheduled for Saturday.

Officials have said at least three people with the infections have died, but whether the infection caused some, all or any of the deaths in patients gravely injured by the tornado is unclear. Investigators from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control are in Joplin now trying to pinpoint whether there are risk factors associated with people who got the disease. They expect to be there about two weeks.

The infection, mucormycosis, might have a fatality rate of 50 percent or higher. The spores can infect people with traumatic injuries, but the fungal infections are rare in healthy people and clusters of them are even rarer.

Health officials have not said if the infections have been tied to a specific species of fungus.

Hardin's son, Thomas, said his mother was found by a neighbor in the rubble of the two-bedroom house at 1223 Montana Place where she and her husband, now deceased, raised three children. Thomas Hardin, who lived with his mother, was at work during the tornado. He initially didn't know where his mother was but found her at Freeman Hospital after a check of hospitals and shelters. She had suffered a fractured left knee, broken left arm and had been impaled in the stomach.

Hardin also couldn't talk. Her jaw had been wired shut because it was broken in four places, but she was able to scribble notes. She told her son that his dog, a Maltese, had survived.

"I was relieved that at least she was safe," Thomas Hardin said. "She seemed in good condition."

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He learned six days after the May 22 tornado that his mother had a fungal infection in a wound on her head.

"They said there was mold or something growing on the wound and they had to clean it up," Thomas Hardin said.

Doctors tried to control the fungus with intravenous medicine and by removing tissue that had been killed by the rapidly spreading infection.

Thomas Hardin said his mother underwent surgery two or three more times to try to control the infection, but it didn't work. On June 7, she went into cardiac arrest. She was resuscitated but was being kept alive by life support. She died about 3:30 p.m. on June 8.

Remembering mother

Thomas Hardin, who had signed a lease on the two-bedroom apartment where he planned to live with his mother, is now living alone.

Robbins is remembering the woman who worked as a school cook to support her three children after their father lost his job. She said Hardin also worked on the weekends at a bookstore but took time off during the summer to take the children camping.

"If life was getting hard, she'd hit her knees and open her Bible," Robbins said. "Faith always got her through."

Robbins plans to remember her mother through her favorite color, yellow.

"I'm going to plant a yellow rose bush at my house so I always have a piece of my mother," Robbins said.